Real-time marketing is the holy grail of advertising. Companies impress customers with marketing campaigns that are precisely tailored to specific triggers – and gain much in return. The basis for these: innovative technologies.

A power outage occurs at the Super Bowl – cookie manufacturer Oreo reacts within seconds with the tweet, “You can still dunk in the dark.” This post went viral in 2013 and wowed millions of viewers. It is now a legendary example of real-time marketing. Seemingly spontaneous campaigns on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram are all about one thing – choosing the right moment.

This doesn’t necessarily require a flash of genius. Instead, stamina and dose of creativity are needed – and the right tools behind you. Oreo had waited for the right moment for a year and a half. Forward-thinking companies plan marketing activities for certain occurrences or events in advance and adapt campaigns according to reactions in real time. These carefully planned measures have a positive effect on the overall marketing results of a company – Oreo received 18 percent more recommendations, 14 percent more purchases, and a 16-percent boost in online searches for the brand.

Four Billion People Are Online Worldwide

Prerequisites for real-time marketing are powerful IT systems and precise knowledge of your customers. With the help of IT, businesses are able to record all steps taken by an interested party and link them logically. Customer interests, search behavior, pages visited, and time statistics are all stored – from first contact with a product to the purchase. There are more than enough touchpoints in the network with four billion people online across the globe and two thirds of the population possessing a cell phone. Those who keep track of this trail will create marketing campaigns that will increase the success of their company.

Leading B2B providers use big data to precisely analyze their customers, helping to reach them early on in the purchasing process and support them with important information on the right digital channels.

Dr. Tobias Umbeck, Partner at Bain & Company and an expert in marketing strategy.

The Challenges in Real-Time Marketing

What counts is the right moment. A successful campaign talks to the right target group with the right words at the right time, and therein lies the biggest challenge for marketing managers. 50 percent of people questioned in a study carried out by Adobe found real-time marketing to be highly complex, especially in terms of systems required. This was found to be all the more true in the B2B market where, unlike in the consumer market, several people are involved in the purchasing process. Still, technologies are making work much easier for marketing experts. Automated systems, centrally stored user data, and real-time analytics offer marketers enormous support. These free up more time to concentrate on the creative side of a campaign and let algorithms take care of analysis.

Real-time marketing campaigns require:

Automated methods of communication that adapt to the user’s unique reactions in real time.

Dynamic, contextual content, depending on location, weather, position in the customer lifecycle, or the features of the device the customer is using.

Integration of all relevant channels, such as email, social media, WhatsApp, or mobile push notifications.

A Personalized Shopping Experience Increases Revenue

Real-time marketing connects a customer to a company and ultimately increases profit. Companies with real-time marketing generate three percent more revenue than companies without it. However, it is not about adapting to each and every trend and “hot topic”. Rather, it’s individualization that is important. Marketing strategies that are specially tailored to the buyer fulfill their desire for a personalized shopping experience. By storing and analyzing customer preferences and responding to them with automated and individualized marketing methods, you show that you are in line with modern demands. Companies are no longer selling just products; they are selling a brand and with it, themselves.